Main gun turrets 1 and 2 dropped out of their barbettes when Indianapolis capsized and their locations are noted above. For some reason turret 3 did not drop free and is still in place.

Indianapolis would likely have survived had only the first torpedo hit severing the bow, several US cruisers lost their bows forward of number 1 turret and survived. But the second torpedo, hitting below the bridge, doomed her.

“Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government-- in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost comes in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.” - Milton Friedman

Sitting in the water with a life jacket with sharks EATING your friends...

Can you imagine surviving that and dealing with some phsrink telling you how you should feel?

"I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging of the future but by the past."Patrick Henry 1775

I personally believe in the tooth fairy, Santa Claus and that deficit spending is sustainable forever. We really do need more Admirals in the Navy than ships and that millions of more poor immigrants will jump start the economy.

“Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government-- in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost comes in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.” - Milton Friedman

Each summer, as Lake Michigan finally begins to warm, I think of the men of the World War II cruiser Indianapolis and the worst disaster at sea in United States naval history. I go down to the lake and I wonder: How would I have survived what they experienced?

I don’t know the answer, but it’s the asking of the question that helps me recalibrate what could be called my moral compass.

On July 30, 1945, just over a month before the end of the war, the ship was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. It sank in 12 minutes. Of the 1,195 men on board, only 316 were alive when help arrived four and a half days later. Headlines of the disaster deeply disturbed Americans: How could this have happened so close to the war’s end?

Today, only 14 of those men are still living, and each July they meet in Indianapolis for a reunion, as they have periodically since 1960, to gather around memories of shipmates who were lost at sea and those survivors who have recently passed away.

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, over 16 million Americans served in World War II, and of those, about 497,000 are with us today, in our neighborhoods, at our grocery stores and family gatherings. Around 400 are dying a day, meaning that sometime within this generation, all will be deceased.

I suspect that we’ll feel, then, that the 20th century has truly ended.

We’ll no longer be able to walk up to the gentleman we spy on our way from the dairy case to the quinoa, wearing a hat bearing the insignia of a World War II unit, and shake the hand of someone who fought Hitler. That connection with the past is especially important when many Americans are flirting with the poisonous ideas our grandfathers and great-grandfathers battled in Europe and the Pacific.

When I first met the survivors of the Indianapolis in 1999 while writing a book about them, their story, the last major action of World War II, was rarely mentioned in high school textbooks. This is despite the fact that, before its torpedoing, the ship had delivered components of the atomic bomb Little Boy to Tinian Island. The bomb parts were packed in a plywood case whose contents the sailors tried vainly to guess, having no idea their ship was delivering the atom to modern warfare.

As the men floated in the sea, they were blinded by sun, hounded by hallucinations, thirst and hunger, attacked by sharks and beset, finally, by the realization that no one was coming to rescue them. Some of them purposefully swam away to die, feeling all hope was lost. Others surrendered to the moment but did not give up, an important distinction. While still certain that rescue would never come, they carried on, assisting struggling shipmates even when it didn’t seem to matter. By becoming selfless, they apprehended who they were as individuals.

When they were miraculously rescued, having been spotted by a 24-year-old pilot named Chuck Gwinn, whom in later years they affectionately called their “angel,” they felt they had been reborn. The second half of the 20th century was powered by this restless energy, possessed by millions of other Americans also returning from war. When I ask the survivors about this ordeal’s effect on their lives, they consistently remark that since their rescue, they’ve “never had a bad day.”

Reflecting on their struggle to survive feels instructive. When I look at Lake Michigan each July, I imagine the men of the Indianapolis visible on the horizon; dark heads, struggling arms, a cry and whirl of a world being remade. I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness, accompanied by a desire to yell out that they will be rescued. At the same time, I know that many were rescued. But the sadness always comes.

What I feel I’m watching, in my mind’s eye, is the work of people struggling to stay alive and, in the process, struggling with what it means to be a moral person, even after they emerged from the crucible of the sea.

Capt. Charles McVay of the Indianapolis was court-martialed, making him the only captain in American history to be court-martialed for losing his ship in an act of war. Giles McCoy, a founder of the U.S.S. Indianapolis Survivors Organization, promised his captain that the Navy one day would exonerate him. But in 1968, outside his stately home in Litchfield, Conn., Captain McVay took his own life.

The survivors and other advocates struggled for years to clear Captain McVay’s name. When I asked Mr. McCoy why his shipmates stood behind Captain McVay, he said, “The skipper never blamed anyone but himself.” This is despite the fact that the Japanese submarine commander who had sunk the ship, Mochitsura Hashimoto, testified during the court-martial that there was nothing Captain McVay could have done to stop it.

Captain McVay, steadfast in his own moral universe, believed otherwise. Forgive yourself, we want to say, but we know he won’t. His sense of duty was profound, and the survivors’ efforts to clear his name can be heard as an elegiac counterpoint to his suffering. Finally, on July 13, 2001, 56 years after the ship’s sinking, the Navy announced that Captain McVay was not culpable for the disaster.

Last night I swam out beyond the buoys, looked up at the sky and felt the dark, pliable hand of the night water take hold. I do this every year: Five minutes floating alone in the dark, unable to touch bottom, is the barest glimpse of the ordeal that those 316 men of the Indianapolis survived. But I recommend it.

Swim out where the bottom swoops to the deep and dog-paddle. Even though you’re certain you’re safe, the mind skips a beat. I promise, you’ll tell yourself: Tomorrow will be a good day.

“Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government-- in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost comes in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.” - Milton Friedman

Seventy three years ago today the survivors of USS Indianapolis have been in the water for almost 48 hours. The still have at least 36 more hours to go before being spotted. Hundreds that have survived until this point will not live that long.

"August 1st: The sun sets, darkening the sky and the Indianapolis survivors' morale with each passing swell. After nearly 64 hours adrift hallucinations swirl among the men. Fear rises and expresses itself through distrust and violence. A few men lash out against their brothers, mistaking them for mortal enemies. Threatened by the sharks below, by the men floating nearby, and by their own minds within, darkness falls on the group. This is the worst night so far, and the realization that the Navy has forgotten them begins to take root."

“Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government-- in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost comes in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.” - Milton Friedman

I've been reading about this tragedy, watching these TV specials and have meet several of the survivors over the past 40+ years that I've been researching USS Indianapolis but it seems it gets harder to watch not easier. The tears flowed a couple of times tonight.

“Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government-- in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost comes in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.” - Milton Friedman